Gompers BSN, RN

Hey everybody!!! I'm still alive, just extremely busy with life these days. Having a 6-month-old plus working full time, yikes!!! Miss you all though! Anyway, when I logged on to Comcast today, I saw a story about a gorilla baby that was abandoned...

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We must be the only ones that never re-use med tubing. They do it in the PICU but we don't in the NICU here. We use fresh tubing every single time and disconnect it after the med is done infusing. Our IV tubing for fluids and drips is changed every...

I read that book a few years ago. Wasn't that the one where there were several cases discussed and there were all the doc's opinions about what to do with each baby's care? Am I thinking of the right book? It showed how we literally play God in de...

You hit the nail on the head.

I dare ANYONE to watch that video and not cry. I think it was the father's voice, especially when he said how proud he was...

We wrap the baby in hospital blankets and then put them in the infant body bag. Two nurses go down to the morgue together, for support, and security meets us down there to open the room. We also have a shelf that we place the infants on. I wish th...

We've all said it before, and I'll be the first to say it again... Why do the nicest parents always have the sickest kids??? It's just not fair. What a wonderful family that little boy had, to cherish his short life and accept him for what he was in...

Good Morning America had a feature about a "miracle" baby that just went home from the hospital. She was 15 ounces and is now TWO YEARS OLD and finally going home. She is trached, vented, and appears to be severely developmentally delayed. The thi...

We swab every baby on admission and then every baby gets swabbed every other Tuesday for their entire stay. I believe the entire hospital is now doing this as well now. I do have to say that for all the MRSA-postitive babies we've had, I've never o...

Same here - we are not allowed to place the baby in the seat or help with installation at all. We can do our carseat test, sure, but that's usually a few days before discharge. When the kids are actually going home, it's up to the parents. We can ...

Tiffy, if I didn't know better I'd swear we work on the same unit! I absolutely HATE reticulocytes, let me tell you!!! I don't care that the baby is retic-ing! The crit is 23 now and it's going to take MONTHS for this preemie to get it up where it ...

I have missed this board so much and now I remember why! You are all too sweet. Good to be back!!!

Glad you had a good experience, Bryan! I *thought* that I wanted to do NICU nursing from the start - it's why I went to nursing school. But there was always some doubt in my mind that it would be nothing like I expected. Then in my junior year of n...

Our travelers and agency nurses are treated about the same - before they can come to our unit they have to go through a 2-day hospital orientation which includes classes on computer charting. If it's a traveler we'll do 2-3 shifts of orientation - o...

Thanks for the thanks! By the way, your signature line is one of my favorite quotes ever.

I agree with littlepeach and kitty29 - many of us who have been in the NICU for years will tell you the same thing: When losing a baby doesn't upset you anymore, that's when you know your time in the NICU is up. If we didn't care so much for these...

That is hysterical! We're really slow right now too - also have about 20 babies when we usually have 40. Glad to know it's slow other places than here! Of course, whenever we say "Man we need some babies!" the non-NICU people in our lives look at us...

I'll have to check what brand we use, but some of our bigger, sicker kids (usually PPHN or post-op) have gotten double lumen lines recently. We use one lumen for TPN, Fentanyl drips, pressors, etc. The other lumen we run 0.9%NS with heparin and use...

Our babies are all swabbed on admission and then again every two weeks. If a baby comes up positive, he or she is cohorted. Nurses caring for MRSA babies are cohorted as well during that shift. If the baby is one of twins/triplets/etc. then we coh...

My thoughts are with this family, but I also hope that this serves as a wake-up call to both fertility docs and couples seeking infertility treatments. A singleton has such a poor chance for survival even at 23-24 weeks. I just can't see how any of...

I use a steam warmer for my own baby's bottle at home and find it to be a bit off sometimes. You pour in water - more or less depending on how much milk there is to heat - and the metal base heats up to steam the water until it's completely evaporat...

Okay, that new video footage is just as bad! Mom was talking about how this baby is going to be a runner or a ballet dancer, because since she was born her tiny little legs have never ever stopped moving. That's really the result of a premature an...

Swaddling the baby is helpful, just keep the one extremity you're sticking out and wrap that baby up nice and tight! Pacifiers and sucrose water work wonders, as stated previously. We use #24 gauge catheters for all our neonates. Definitely use a ...

$14.99 for a 3-pack at Babies R Us, I just bought some for my daughter yesterday.